HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
January 16, 2024
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Ethnic Rohingya women and children board a truck as they are being relocated from their temporary shelter at the basement of a community hall following a protest rejecting Rohingya refugees in Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023. © 2023 AP Photo/Reza Saifullah (Jakarta) – Indonesian
authorities should immediately stop all pushbacks of boats carrying
ethnic Rohingya refugees, and investigate and end all assaults on
refugees, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should allow
them to disembark in the nearest safe port, provide protection and
humanitarian assistance, and investigate online incitement of violence
against them.
On December 27, 2023, more than 100 students broke through police lines and stormed a car park in the city of Banda Aceh, where 137 Rohingya refugees,
mostly women and children, had been temporarily placed. The students
verbally and physically assaulted the refugees, then forced them onto
trucks, which transported the refugees to the government office
responsible for immigration where the students demanded the refugees be
deported. Elsewhere in Aceh province, residents have tried to prevent Rohingya boats from reaching the shore, and surrounded the tents of Rohingya on beaches and other temporary locations, and demanded that they be relocated.
“The
Indonesian government should ensure that Rohingya boat refugees are
immediately brought ashore and protected, not pushed back to die at sea,
or be attacked by anti-Rohingya mobs,” said Phil Robertson,
deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should
investigate and hold accountable whoever has been mobilizing an online
campaign inciting violence against Rohingya arrivals.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that since November, 11 Rohingya boats have landed and the refugees relocated to informal sites,
mostly in Aceh and one in North Sumatra. At least 1,700 Rohingya
refugees, more than 70 percent of them women and children, have landed
in the two provinces since November.
A
Rohingya refugee who has been living in Aceh since early 2023 told Human
Rights Watch that his wife, their two children, and his brother were
part of the group attacked on December 27.
“In
the video on social media, I saw my kids hit by things the students
were throwing,” he said. “My wife was crying along with other Rohingya,
and my brother was lying on the ground. He was so hungry because the
group didn’t have food for many days while they were floating out at
sea.”
The man said he has been unable to
reunite with his family due to the risk of further attacks, and is
regularly receiving calls from traffickers threatening to kidnap his
family from their temporary shelter.
On December 27, UNHCR said
that the Rohingya have faced “a coordinated online campaign of
misinformation, disinformation and hate speech against refugees and an
attempt to malign Indonesia’s efforts to save desperate lives in
distress at sea.”
Recently created
anonymous accounts on Instagram, TikTok, and X, formerly known as
Twitter, have spread disinformation and misinformation about Rohingya
refugees that has put their safety at risk. Anonymous accounts also
identified local UNHCR staff in Aceh and published personal information
(“doxing”), leading to numerous online threats and personal risks in
carrying out their work. The social media monitoring and fact-checking
organization Drone Emprit analyzed posts from December 2-8 and found a campaign of false information and hate narratives against Rohingya.
The
Indonesian authorities should urgently investigate alleged organizers
of incitement against Rohingya refugees and take appropriate action to
hold those responsible to account, Human Rights Watch said.
On December 28, the Indonesian navy pushed a Rohingya boat back out to sea off Weh Island,
Aceh’s northernmost area. This contravened Indonesia’s
search-and-rescue obligations at sea and international legal obligations
to provide access to asylum and to not return anyone to a place where
they would face a real risk of persecution, torture, or other
ill-treatment. The pushback was also not in keeping with Indonesia’s
longstanding humanitarian reputation for assisting refugees at sea,
including Rohingya.
Southeast Asian
governments should undertake greater regional and international
cooperation to respond to boats carrying Rohingya refugees in distress,
including coordinated search-and-rescue operations and timely
disembarkation at the nearest safe port, Human Rights Watch said. The
governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand should provide Rohingya
refugees with access to fair asylum procedures and ensure that they are
not indefinitely detained, held in inhospitable conditions, or
threatened with being forcibly returned to Myanmar.
Rohingya
are being driven to high-risk sea voyages due to growing restrictions
and hopelessness in the refugee camps in Bangladesh and unending oppression and violence
in Myanmar. Most are looking to ultimately reach Malaysia where an
existing Rohingya community holds the promise of work, although many who
arrive end up in immigration detention.
More than 3,500 Rohingya attempted dangerous sea crossings in the
Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal in 2022, a fivefold increase over the
previous year, at least 350 of whom died or were reported missing.
In
the past two years, the one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
have faced escalating gang violence and ration cuts and increasing
restrictions by the authorities.
The
Rohingya who remain in Myanmar’s Rakhine State are subject to
persecution and violence, confined to camps and villages without freedom
of movement, and cut off from access to adequate food, health care,
education, and livelihoods. Conditions for the safe, sustainable,
dignified return of Rohingya refugees currently do not exist, given the
frequent serious human rights violations by the Myanmar junta and
ongoing crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.
“The
Indonesian authorities should fully investigate who is disrupting the
practice of fishermen and villagers in Aceh to assist Rohingya refugees
arriving in rickety boats and offer them assistance,” Robertson said.
“Indonesia should not join other Southeast Asian countries that have
been pushing back Rohingya boats and letting these desperate people
float away to their deaths.”
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